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August Strindberg’s 1907 chamber play about a woman who has an abnormally close relationship with her son-in-law is at once hyperrealistic–some dialogue resembles a verbatim transcript of conversation–and so bizarre as to leave reality far behind. At one point two characters engage in an ecstatic discussion as they’re being burned alive. It’s beyond me why Japanese-born director Makoto felt it was a good idea to add another stylistic layer to The Pelican in this Yama Works production....

For the past eight years, residents of Marquette Park have been paying about $70 a year in extra property taxes to have private armed security guards patrol their streets, watch their children walk home from school, and keep an eye on seniors as they wait for the bus. Marquette Park was reportedly the first residential neighborhood in the country to have a private security force, and it’s still the only neighborhood in Chicago to have one....

In his book The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, William A. Rossi writes, “Foot fetishism or intense foot partialism is common enough to have earned itself a medical term, equus eroticus.” Erotic horse?! Is Rossi kidding? How is “erotic horse” relevant to feet? I simply do not get it. Cecil, please explain. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » There does seem to be some confusion in the world of BDSM (bondage-discipline-sadomasochism) about the meaning of equus eroticus....

Friday 10 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » HUGE PONTOONS Chicago’s Huge Pontoons are a guilty pleasure for grown-ups who have Weird Al tapes hidden in their sock drawers. The band’s sole album, last year’s Honky if You Love White People (Kapi-Tel), is an obnoxious but affectionate parody of 90s metal, pop punk, and college rock–the goofy cliches are packed so densely that not even light can escape....

What should Illinois do with Joy Brown? Should she be there? Joy Brown is one of four women on whose behalf the clemency project has petitioned Governor Ryan. Three of the four were convicted in Madison County, which is just across the Mississippi River from and northeast of Saint Louis; Edwardsville’s the county seat. In response, Haine launched a campaign to ensure that all three women–and Joy Brown in particular–serve every day of their sentences....

Rock, Pop, Etc. ASCAP CABARET: COMING HOME Chicago Humanities Festival performance hosted by Karen Mason, with Susan Werner, Marcy Heisler, Tom Andersen, Jason Graae, Mark Hollmann, Barry Kleinbort; sold out. Sat 11/1, 8 PM, Thorne Auditorium, Northwestern University School of Law, 375 E. Chicago. 312-494-9509. MICHAEL BUBLE Wed 10/29 and Thu 10/30, 8 PM, Black Orchid, 230 W. North. 312-944-6200. DA BAND, MVP, DJ JOHNNY VICIOUS perform at the Pimp & Ho Ball....

The Dazzle Little else was known of the “hermits of Harlem” until their bodies were discovered 14 years later. But the facts, though sketchy, make it clear that something extraordinary happened to these men–and perhaps even more extraordinary things happened between them. Moreover, their lives suggest a succinct metaphor for the social upheavals of the early 20th century, as the last vestiges of a self-absorbed American aristocracy crumbled while new forms of urban life took root....

As the proprietors of the Lucky Kitchen label, Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman have released recordings by everyone from local bassist Josh Abrams to big-deal sound artist Stephen Vitiello. But the couple’s own releases are little marvels of packaging that blend music, audio verite, fiction, and visual art. The Tale of Pip (which just received the Award of Distinction in Europe’s prestigious Prix Ars Electronica cyberart competition) is a strange children’s story illuminated on disc by a wide variety of sound and music and presented in a bound book with beautiful printing and illustrations, while Salinas’s Home Tapes, built on home recordings she made at age nine, comes on ten-inch white vinyl with the liner notes hand-printed on a paper napkin....

Edward Lipski In Fuckers, two almost fused black figures appear to be having sex doggy style. The one on all fours looks like a dog, and the standing figure has a fluffy tail; Lipski says that each is intended to be seen as part human and part animal. Their rough surfaces, reminiscent of burnt charcoal, are actually made up of lambs’ wool, which Lipski purchased dyed. Lipski says he made multiple cracks in the black base “to corrupt the integrity of that support”: they made me think of the cliche that an orgasm is like an earthquake–a force evoking destruction and ecstasy....

JUNE Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “I don’t think outsiders are going to be alienated–that there are so many in-jokes that they wouldn’t get it,” says Factory Theater managing director Chas Vrba about the 11-year-old troupe’s new show, Chicagostyle. The series of comedic vignettes ranges from a sketch skewering da mare’s Neighborhoods Alive program to a musical production about riding the el to a newcomer’s take on the Windy City, in which he marvels at the high-fat cuisine and the sports fans’ penchant for attacking umpires and coaches....

MAY On March 26, just before midnight, a meteorite exploded over Chicago’s south suburbs. A piece of the friction-fried space rock goes on exhibit today at the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, where at 2 this afternoon geologist Paul Sipiera of the Algonquin-based Planetary Studies Foundation will give a lecture called The Stone From the Sky. Sipiera says every meteorite is a “surprise package,” offering a chance to study the oldest solid material in our solar system (dating from about 4....

Live Bait Theater’s eighth annual showcase of one-person performances features old and new work by a slew of fringe artists. The fest runs through August 30 at Live Bait Theater, 3914 N. Clark; performances take place in the theater’s Bucket space. Tickets are $10 per show; a festival pass to all shows costs $30. Call 773-871-1212 for reservations (tickets are also available online at www.ticketweb.com); check www.livebaittheater.org for more information....

If you ask Brett Van Emst, the connotations of the term “literary magazine” are better than those of “bloated corpse,” but only slightly. Granta? “Boring.” The Paris Review? “Muddy.” How about Red Cedar Review, the one produced at his alma mater, Michigan State? “They just keep churning out the same issue with different names.” He won’t have Midnight Mind, which he publishes and edits, lumped in with them. “Midnight Mind,” he says, “is more of a cultural magazine....

ISOTOPE 217 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » After using its first two albums to hammer out a cogent synthesis of funk, electro, improv, and jazz, Isotope 217 sought to capture the raw, playful unpredictability of its live shows on last year’s Who Stole the I Walkman? (Thrill Jockey). When I first heard the record, I thought the quintet had merely succeeded in interspersing tightly arranged, wonderfully compact compositions with formless, flat jamming, but over time, the transition from deep grooves like “Meta Bass” to the episodic schizophrenia of “Harm-o-Lodge”–a computerized juggling of disjointed beatboxing, Rob Mazurek’s electronically processed cornet blasts, and Jeff Parker’s biting guitar lines–has come to seem more natural....

Guitarist and hands-on producer John Parish has exerted his influence quietly over the years, helping P.J. Harvey (To Bring You My Love), Sparklehorse (It’s a Wonderful Life), Eels (Souljacker), and Goldfrapp (Felt Mountain) whittle their music down to its core, allowing no wasted gestures or extraneous notes. In 1996 he played all the instruments and wrote almost all the music on Dance Hall at Louse Point (Island), a superb set of moody tunes sung by Harvey; a few years later he scored the film Rosie....

American brands like Coke and McDonald’s may be as ubiquitous in the Arab world as they are here, but when it comes to insipid pop heartthrobs, the Egyptians, Lebanese, and Saudis have more than enough of their own. Iraqi singer Kazem Al Saher stands out from the meticulously coiffed pretty boys turned out by Cairo’s hit factories. Now 41, he’s maintained his stardom for a decade and a half, and though, like the competition, he rarely sings about anything other than love, he has stretched out some musically....

Danny Orozco seems dressed for a date. He has on a blue checked button-down shirt, a black tie, black sweatpants, a black leather jacket, a new pair of white Reeboks, and a baseball cap that says “I’m All Good.” Hidden by his clothes are the tattoos–the blue and red signature of his life in a Pilsen street gang and his years in prison. Orozco, who’s 45, carries around a small photo album containing several dozen snapshots of him with various female nursing aides, therapists, and caregivers at Sheridan Shores....

Sometimes it takes an outsider to fully appreciate a culture’s traditions. In 1972 American musician and budding ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner traveled to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) to study the mbira, a thumb piano the Shona people had used for over a thousand years. Staying in a hotel in the western part of the country, Berliner was roused from sleep by a strangely familiar sound. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Back then, most people in the U....

Soul Kitchen owner Pam Scariano gazes up at the ceiling and counts on her fingers the number of employees who have been with her through the restaurant’s transitions. “Let’s see, two have been with me since day one,” she says. Eight more have stuck with her since the 1995 move to North, Damen, and Milwaukee. “I’m so lucky,” she adds, realizing that those ten make up over half her staff. “I have hardly any turnover....

Lead Story Things People in Government Believe Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Diana Cortez and Sandra Lopez, formerly the mayor and bookkeeper of La Grulla, Texas, pleaded guilty in November to spending $53,700 of the town’s federal grant money on psychic consultations. And in August the Saint Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association fired consultant David Levin after seven years’ service, during which time it paid him around $1....